8 ms·

Did anyone actually ever put web apps on their home screen?

c-hendricks 3y ago
The majority of mine are, yeah
rambambram 3y ago
Definitely, but only the simple web apps (like an icon that links to an url in the browser) that aren't affected by Apple's changes, so no notifications and stuff because it wasn't a PWA. It was a nice experience. I had a fast hosting provider and it worked seamless. Right now I use Android on a cheap Samsung and loading webpages takes ages with Firefox. I don't think Google goes freely in killing the web, but we already knew that.
jcmontx 3y ago
I have a few. X has a pretty good PWA.
geraldhh 3y ago
have a 'link' to fast.com on my homescreen, but it's just a shortcut to an url, no 'web app' or am i mistaken?
- c-hendricks 3y ago
  You can add any website to your home screen. If the site has some special meta information, it can display like any other app (full screen, its own entry in your multitasking UI). Otherwise it just opens in your regular browser.
szasamasa 3y ago
web apps are the future, not the present Apple was holding them back and just pulled the plug. Only if web programmers can count on future proof support will they produce web apps. In addition, most companies have already created native apps so again, web apps are the future, it is not an argument that there are few on iOS and yes, outlook or X are good examples
- meepmorp 3y ago
  web apps are a lowest common denominator solution that result in shittier software with worse features, security, and privacy
  - pembrook 3y ago
    The solution is to improve web app capabilities and security, not to devolve back to platform-specific fiefdoms just because there’s kinks to work out. Disentangling apps from OS-specific environments is how we introduce competition back into computing. Apple and Microsoft are the most valuable companies in the history of earth due to these fiefdoms and it’s about time we got some reversion to the mean.
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      “Web” as an OS is overbloated, with decades of legacy junk. It was never meant to run applications, and yet it does. The strong indicator for this is that there are only, what, 3 (two sharing common ancestor, so more like 2.5?) non-dead rendering engines, and it’s practically impossible to implement a new one? (Yes, a toy engine is possible, but anything practical is out of reach.) My point is, you can’t introduce competition over this platform - it’s the same sort of a walled garden, just with different owners.
      - szasamasa 3y ago
        yes, there are sooo many OS out there linux and windows, then 3x linux derivatives (android, mac, ios) so we have the linux kernel and windows, we still exist (1% open source) browsers have the open source chromium kernel plus safari and firefox and some small others it seems to me browser choice is good enough I dont mind if google and microsoft engineers all work on chromium together...
        drdaeman 3y ago
        I'm sorry, but your comment has a lot of simple facts stated plain wrong, and then it entirely misses the point (which could be my fault for not making it clear what it was about). macOS and iOS are based on Darwin, which is a BSD-derivative, IIRC there's nothing from Linux in there at all (although IIRC macOS used to ship some GNU programs). Chromium is not the engine, Blink and WebKit are. Android has almost no relation to GNU - sure, it has Linux kernel, but, it's entirely different system on top of it... but all of this is not important. It doesn't matter if the browser choice is good enough or not. That's not the point at all - today's browsers are going to become irrelevant, just like '90s and 00's browsers don't matter anymore (Trident? Presto? CERN and NSCA stuff?). The fact there are only few engines remaining is the indicator, not the problem. The core issue that the entry barrier is extremely high, and the foundations are still almost as bad as they were when Web2.0 was conceived. There's a giant baggage of legacy stuff that has pretty large impedance mismatch. The colossuses are growing so fast no one can realistically build a competing one anymore, yet all of them have feet of clay, as they were never meant/designed to grow into what they became through their twisted evolution. By the way, I can totally understand if someone would disagree with this. Evolution takes weird paths, but somehow ends up achieving impressive results, and if we would stop caring about how things are working underneath (think of a recurrent laryngeal nerve analogy) and only focus on what they can do, maybe it's fine.
Eupolemos 3y ago
Yeah.
sccxy 3y ago
I have 11 Web Apps in iOS Home Screen, 9 Web Apps (MS Edge) in macOS & Windows.
- szasamasa 3y ago
  and I guess we all use a lot of responsive websites that are minimally web apps in funtionality, even if they did not offer manifest files for standalone mode I just found out that hover which is a responsive website without mobile apps can be added to home screen ("install") on mobile... well I tried it and it is on my home screen as a web app! vow! I mean a web app is not a website you download or install, no need to ask how many are on the home screen... the real question is web capabilities, we need good web programmers, companies with web strategies to get a lot of powerful websites it is actually not the most important thing whether you add it to the homescreen or what... the most important thing is to support the web capabilities with security in mind it is not a fight against native, it is a choice and competition, freedom, free choices are normally good

The majority of mine are, yeah

Definitely, but only the simple web apps (like an icon that links to an url in the browser) that aren't affected by Apple's changes, so no notifications and stuff because it wasn't a PWA. It was a nice experience. I had a fast hosting provider and it worked seamless. Right now I use Android on a cheap Samsung and loading webpages takes ages with Firefox. I don't think Google goes freely in killing the web, but we already knew that.

jcmontx 3y ago

I have a few. X has a pretty good PWA.

geraldhh 3y ago

have a 'link' to fast.com on my homescreen, but it's just a shortcut to an url, no 'web app' or am i mistaken?

c-hendricks 3y ago
You can add any website to your home screen. If the site has some special meta information, it can display like any other app (full screen, its own entry in your multitasking UI). Otherwise it just opens in your regular browser.

szasamasa 3y ago

web apps are the future, not the present Apple was holding them back and just pulled the plug. Only if web programmers can count on future proof support will they produce web apps. In addition, most companies have already created native apps so again, web apps are the future, it is not an argument that there are few on iOS and yes, outlook or X are good examples

meepmorp 3y ago
web apps are a lowest common denominator solution that result in shittier software with worse features, security, and privacy
- pembrook 3y ago
  The solution is to improve web app capabilities and security, not to devolve back to platform-specific fiefdoms just because there’s kinks to work out. Disentangling apps from OS-specific environments is how we introduce competition back into computing. Apple and Microsoft are the most valuable companies in the history of earth due to these fiefdoms and it’s about time we got some reversion to the mean.
  - drdaeman 3y ago
    “Web” as an OS is overbloated, with decades of legacy junk. It was never meant to run applications, and yet it does. The strong indicator for this is that there are only, what, 3 (two sharing common ancestor, so more like 2.5?) non-dead rendering engines, and it’s practically impossible to implement a new one? (Yes, a toy engine is possible, but anything practical is out of reach.) My point is, you can’t introduce competition over this platform - it’s the same sort of a walled garden, just with different owners.
    - szasamasa 3y ago
      yes, there are sooo many OS out there linux and windows, then 3x linux derivatives (android, mac, ios) so we have the linux kernel and windows, we still exist (1% open source) browsers have the open source chromium kernel plus safari and firefox and some small others it seems to me browser choice is good enough I dont mind if google and microsoft engineers all work on chromium together...
      - drdaeman 3y ago
        I'm sorry, but your comment has a lot of simple facts stated plain wrong, and then it entirely misses the point (which could be my fault for not making it clear what it was about). macOS and iOS are based on Darwin, which is a BSD-derivative, IIRC there's nothing from Linux in there at all (although IIRC macOS used to ship some GNU programs). Chromium is not the engine, Blink and WebKit are. Android has almost no relation to GNU - sure, it has Linux kernel, but, it's entirely different system on top of it... but all of this is not important. It doesn't matter if the browser choice is good enough or not. That's not the point at all - today's browsers are going to become irrelevant, just like '90s and 00's browsers don't matter anymore (Trident? Presto? CERN and NSCA stuff?). The fact there are only few engines remaining is the indicator, not the problem. The core issue that the entry barrier is extremely high, and the foundations are still almost as bad as they were when Web2.0 was conceived. There's a giant baggage of legacy stuff that has pretty large impedance mismatch. The colossuses are growing so fast no one can realistically build a competing one anymore, yet all of them have feet of clay, as they were never meant/designed to grow into what they became through their twisted evolution. By the way, I can totally understand if someone would disagree with this. Evolution takes weird paths, but somehow ends up achieving impressive results, and if we would stop caring about how things are working underneath (think of a recurrent laryngeal nerve analogy) and only focus on what they can do, maybe it's fine.

Eupolemos 3y ago

Yeah.

sccxy 3y ago

I have 11 Web Apps in iOS Home Screen, 9 Web Apps (MS Edge) in macOS & Windows.

szasamasa 3y ago
and I guess we all use a lot of responsive websites that are minimally web apps in funtionality, even if they did not offer manifest files for standalone mode I just found out that hover which is a responsive website without mobile apps can be added to home screen ("install") on mobile... well I tried it and it is on my home screen as a web app! vow! I mean a web app is not a website you download or install, no need to ask how many are on the home screen... the real question is web capabilities, we need good web programmers, companies with web strategies to get a lot of powerful websites it is actually not the most important thing whether you add it to the homescreen or what... the most important thing is to support the web capabilities with security in mind it is not a fight against native, it is a choice and competition, freedom, free choices are normally good